First Rwanda flights delayed ‘by months’ due to legal backlash

BORIS Johnson was last night urged to kickstart the controversial Rwanda migrant scheme after Downing Street indicated it was already delayed ‘by months’.

The landmark plan to send illegal migrants – including many crossing the Channel from France – on a 4,000-mile one-way flight to East Africa provoked condemnation from human rights groups when it was announced last month.

Yesterday the Prime Minister’s spokesman suggested anticipated legal challenges from such groups had delayed the plans, with the first flights originally expected to leave by the end of this month. No10 said it was now hoped flights could leave ‘in a matter of months’ as the Government tries to deal with the backlash.

The comments came as 70 migrants arrived on the south coast in small boats yesterday. They follow more than 500 who arrived in Kent on Sunday and Monday.

Supporters of the Rwanda scheme say it will have a deterrent effect only once flights actually begin to leave the UK.

Asked when the first migrants would be sent to Rwanda, the PM’s spokesman said: ‘We’ve received pre-action correspondence from a number of legal firms. I can’t get into that more, as you would expect, but we still maintain our hope to have the first flights take place in a matter of months.’

Commenting on the timetable ‘slipping’ from the original target, he added: ‘Obviously our intention is to move ahead with this as soon as possible. We want to deter people from making these dangerous journeys which put lives at risk.’ Conservative MP Peter Bone said: ‘Flights need to be going as soon as possible as that will act as a deterrent. What isn’t going to happen is 30 or 40,000 people going to Rwanda because the smugglers and migrants will know prior to this that we are serious.

‘Until we start getting people across, the migrants will think it is all bluff as that’s what the smugglers will be telling them. I would urge the Government to do everything they can to speed things up. The success of this policy will only bear fruit when the flights to Rwanda take place.’

Fellow Tory MP Robert Jenrick said the scheme was ‘technically difficult’ and it would work only if implemented ‘at scale’.

‘If you’re going to make it work as a deterrent, you need to send a very large number of the migrants crossing the Channel to Rwanda,’ he told BBC’s Politics Live.

‘If it’s just one or two plane loads... I don’t think it’s going to have the impact the Government want it to. It will only work if it provides a clear deterrent. That involves getting on with it now.’

‘Migrants will think it’s a bluff’